Find Swedish best practice

Umeå Municipality has a total of 19 wastewater treatment plants. The largest handles waste water from households and various companies in the area. Every year, it receives about 13 million cubic metres of waste water, containing 3,000 tonnes of organic material and 80 tonnes of phosphorus. And every day it produces 23,000 kWh of biogas.

Sustainable Ålidhem in Umeå is a unique urban development project, encompassing the social, technical, environmental and economic aspects of sustainability. The objective of the project is to reduce energy usage, create a safer and more comfortable environment and transform Ålidhem into a sustainable neighbourhood.

Green Zone is a unique pioneering project, proving that it’s possible to create an almost waste-free environment even when building and operating services like a car wash and petrol station. The synergy-based solutions for air, light, energy and water make Green Zone a centre for learning about circular sustainability.

At Gimonäs Recycling Center the households can submit their bulky waste, garden waste and the hazardous waste at no additional charge. The municipal company, Vakin, owns and operates seven recycling centers in Umeå municipality and one in Vindeln municipality.

The generation of both district heating and electricity almost entirely from waste makes the Dåva CHP (combined heat and power) plant extremely energy efficient and environmentally sustainable. Its renewable sources include sorted waste and forest industry residues.

The Älvsbacka Bridge in Skellefteå is one of many pedestrian bridges constructed by Martinsons since the late 1980s and an innovative example of wood construction. It takes advantage of the environmental and other benefits from greater use of wood in building projects.

The municipalty of Skellefteå collect waste from homes and workplaces and produces there own biogasfuell for use in the municipality cars and in the public buses.

Over the past 15-20 years, Lomma Hamn has been transformed from an industrial harbor into an attractive, appreciated, and accessible residential area. Lomma municipality has not only taken care of an environmental debt and created a well-known brand but also experienced a 30 percent increase in population compared to before the redevelopment.

Malmö’s Western Harbour, previously a run-down shipyard and industrial area covering 187 hectares, is now a vibrant ‘city within a city’, with a university, around 10,000 residents and more than 16,000 people working there (figure from 2016). The area has its own systems for managing its energy supply and waste treatment, and car traffic in the area has been minimised as an environmentally sustainable approach to urban planning and mobility.

The digestion facility for the production of biogas is one of the bigger in Sweden, treating about 85,000 tons of organic material every year.

Greater recycling for a more resource-efficient society requires smart solutions for collecting and recycling materials. The Swedish region of Östergötland is where you’ll find several innovations in this field.

One of Falu Energi & Vatten’s businesses is Waste Management. These include the Falu Recycling Plant that takes care of all household waste and a large part of the waste from private sectors in Falun Municipality.